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Title: The Waste Land

Author: T. S. Eliot


May, 1998  [Etext #1321]
Last Updated: April 23, 2013

Language: English

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THE WASTE LAND

By T. S. Eliot

  "Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis
  vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent:
  Sibylla ti theleis; respondebat illa: apothanein thelo."






CONTENTS

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

II. A GAME OF CHESS

III. THE FIRE SERMON

IV. DEATH BY WATER

V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID

NOTES ON "THE WASTE LAND"








I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

  April is the cruellest month, breeding
  Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
  Memory and desire, stirring
  Dull roots with spring rain.
  Winter kept us warm, covering
  Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
  A little life with dried tubers.
  Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
  With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
  And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,                            10
  And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
  Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
  And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
  My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
  And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
  Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
  In the mountains, there you feel free.
  I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

  What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
  Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,                                  20
  You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
  A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
  And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
  And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
  There is shadow under this red rock,
  (Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
  And I will show you something different from either
  Your shadow at morning striding behind you
  Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
  I will show you fear in a handful of dust.                              30
       Frisch weht der Wind
       Der Heimat zu
       Mein Irisch Kind,
       Wo weilest du?
  "You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
  "They called me the hyacinth girl."
  —Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
  Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
  Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
  Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,                                    40
  Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
  Od' und leer das Meer.

  Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
  Had a bad cold, nevertheless
  Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
  With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
  Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
  (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
  Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
  The lady of situations.                                                 50
  Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
  And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
  Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
  Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
  The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
  I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
  Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
  Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
  One must be so careful these days.

  Unreal City,                                                            60
  Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
  A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
  I had not thought death had undone so many.
  Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
  And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
  Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
  To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
  With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
  There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying "Stetson!
  "You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!                            70
  "That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
  "Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
  "Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?

  Line 42 Od'] Oed'— Editor.

  "Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
  "Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
  "You! hypocrite lecteur!— mon semblable,— mon frere!"








II. A GAME OF CHESS

  The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
  Glowed on the marble, where the glass
  Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
  From which a golden Cupidon peeped out                                  80
  (Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
  Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
  Reflecting light upon the table as
  The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
  From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
  In vials of ivory and coloured glass
  Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
  Unguent, powdered, or liquid— troubled, confused
  And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
  That freshened from the window, these ascended                          90
  In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
  Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
  Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
  Huge sea-wood fed with copper
  Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
  In which sad light a carved dolphin swam.
  Above the antique mantel was displayed
  As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
  The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
  So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale                             100
  Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
  And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
  "Jug Jug" to dirty ears.
  And other withered stumps of time
  Were told upon the walls; staring forms
  Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
  Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
  Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
  Spread out in fiery points
  Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.                        110

  "My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
  "Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
  "What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
  "I never know what you are thinking. Think."

  I think we are in rats' alley
  Where the dead men lost their bones.

  "What is that noise?"
                               The wind under the door.
  "What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?"
                               Nothing again nothing.                     120
                                                                    "Do
  "You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
  "Nothing?"

     I remember
  Those are pearls that were his eyes.
  "Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?"
                                                                      But
  O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
  It's so elegant
  So intelligent                                                          130
  "What shall I do now? What shall I do?"
  I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
  "With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
  "What shall we ever do?"
                                       The hot water at ten.
  And if it rains, a closed car at four.
  And we shall play a game of chess,
  Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

  When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said—
  I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,                          140
  HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
  Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
  He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
  To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
  You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
  He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.
  And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
  He's been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
  And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.
  Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said.                       150
  Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
  HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
  If you don't like it you can get on with it, I said.
  Others can pick and choose if you can't.
  But if Albert makes off, it won't be for lack of telling.
  You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
  (And her only thirty-one.)
  I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face,
  It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
  (She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.)              160
  The chemist said it would be alright, but I've never been the same.
  You are a proper fool, I said.
  Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said,
  What you get married for if you don't want children?
  HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
  Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
  And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
  HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
  HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
  Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.                    170
  Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
  Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.








III. THE FIRE SERMON

  The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
  Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
  Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
  Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
  The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
  Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
  Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
  And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;               180
  Departed, have left no addresses.

  Line 161 ALRIGHT. This spelling occurs also in
  the Hogarth Press edition— Editor.

  By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
  Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
  Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
  But at my back in a cold blast I hear
  The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
  A rat crept softly through the vegetation
  Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
  While I was fishing in the dull canal
  On a winter evening round behind the gashouse                           190
  Musing upon the king my brother's wreck
  And on the king my father's death before him.
  White bodies naked on the low damp ground
  And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
  Rattled by the rat's foot only, year to year.
  But at my back from time to time I hear
  The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
  Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
  O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
  And on her daughter                                                     200
  They wash their feet in soda water
  Et O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

  Twit twit twit
  Jug jug jug jug jug jug
  So rudely forc'd.
  Tereu

  Unreal City
  Under the brown fog of a winter noon
  Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
  Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants                                210
  C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
  Asked me in demotic French
  To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
  Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.

  At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
  Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
  Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
  I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
  Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
  At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives                       220
  Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
  The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
  Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
  Out of the window perilously spread
  Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,
  On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
  Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
  I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
  Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
  I too awaited the expected guest.                                       230
  He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
  A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,
  One of the low on whom assurance sits
  As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
  The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
  The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
  Endeavours to engage her in caresses
  Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
  Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
  Exploring hands encounter no defence;                                   240
  His vanity requires no response,
  And makes a welcome of indifference.
  (And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
  Enacted on this same divan or bed;
  I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
  And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
  Bestows one final patronising kiss,
  And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .

  She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
  Hardly aware of her departed lover;                                     250
  Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
  "Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over."
  When lovely woman stoops to folly and
  Paces about her room again, alone,
  She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
  And puts a record on the gramophone.

  "This music crept by me upon the waters"
  And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
  O City city, I can sometimes hear
  Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,                             260
  The pleasant whining of a mandoline
  And a clatter and a chatter from within
  Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
  Of Magnus Martyr hold
  Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.

       The river sweats
       Oil and tar
       The barges drift
       With the turning tide
       Red sails                                                          270
       Wide
       To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
       The barges wash
       Drifting logs
       Down Greenwich reach
       Past the Isle of Dogs.
            Weialala leia
            Wallala leialala

       Elizabeth and Leicester
       Beating oars                                                       280
       The stern was formed
       A gilded shell
       Red and gold
       The brisk swell
       Rippled both shores
       Southwest wind
       Carried down stream
       The peal of bells
       White towers
            Weialala leia                                                 290
            Wallala leialala

  "Trams and dusty trees.
  Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
  Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
  Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe."

  "My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
  Under my feet. After the event
  He wept. He promised 'a new start'.
  I made no comment. What should I resent?"
  "On Margate Sands.                                                      300
  I can connect
  Nothing with nothing.
  The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
  My people humble people who expect
  Nothing."
       la la

  To Carthage then I came

  Burning burning burning burning
  O Lord Thou pluckest me out
  O Lord Thou pluckest                                                    310

  burning








IV. DEATH BY WATER

  Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
  Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
  And the profit and loss.
                                           A current under sea
  Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
  He passed the stages of his age and youth
  Entering the whirlpool.
                                         Gentile or Jew
  O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,                          320
  Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.








V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID

  After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
  After the frosty silence in the gardens
  After the agony in stony places
  The shouting and the crying
  Prison and palace and reverberation
  Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
  He who was living is now dead
  We who were living are now dying
  With a little patience                                                  330

  Here is no water but only rock
  Rock and no water and the sandy road
  The road winding above among the mountains
  Which are mountains of rock without water
  If there were water we should stop and drink
  Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
  Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
  If there were only water amongst the rock
  Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
  Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit                              340
  There is not even silence in the mountains
  But dry sterile thunder without rain
  There is not even solitude in the mountains
  But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
  From doors of mudcracked houses
                                                           If there were water
  And no rock
  If there were rock
  And also water
  And water                                                               350
  A spring
  A pool among the rock
  If there were the sound of water only
  Not the cicada
  And dry grass singing
  But sound of water over a rock
  Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
  Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
  But there is no water

  Who is the third who walks always beside you?                          360
  When I count, there are only you and I together
  But when I look ahead up the white road
  There is always another one walking beside you
  Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
  I do not know whether a man or a woman
  —But who is that on the other side of you?

  What is that sound high in the air
  Murmur of maternal lamentation
  Who are those hooded hordes swarming
  Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth                         370
  Ringed by the flat horizon only
  What is the city over the mountains
  Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
  Falling towers
  Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
  Vienna London
  Unreal

  A woman drew her long black hair out tight
  And fiddled whisper music on those strings
  And bats with baby faces in the violet light                            380
  Whistled, and beat their wings
  And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
  And upside down in air were towers
  Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
  And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

  In this decayed hole among the mountains
  In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
  Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
  There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.
  It has no windows, and the door swings,                                 390
  Dry bones can harm no one.
  Only a cock stood on the rooftree
  Co co rico co co rico
  In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
  Bringing rain

  Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
  Waited for rain, while the black clouds
  Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
  The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
  Then spoke the thunder                                                  400
  DA
  Datta: what have we given?
  My friend, blood shaking my heart
  The awful daring of a moment's surrender
  Which an age of prudence can never retract
  By this, and this only, we have existed
  Which is not to be found in our obituaries
  Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
  Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
  In our empty rooms                                                     410
  DA
  Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
  Turn in the door once and turn once only
  We think of the key, each in his prison
  Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
  Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
  Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
  DA
  Damyata: The boat responded
  Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar                            420
  The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
  Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
  To controlling hands

                                       I sat upon the shore
  Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
  Shall I at least set my lands in order?
  London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
  Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina
  Quando fiam ceu chelidon— O swallow swallow
  Le Prince d'Aquitaine a la tour abolie                                 430
  These fragments I have shored against my ruins
  Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
  Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
                             Shantih    shantih    shantih

  Line 416 aetherial] aethereal
  Line 429 ceu] uti— Editor








NOTES ON "THE WASTE LAND"

Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism of the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston's book on the Grail legend: From Ritual to Romance (Macmillan).<1> Indeed, so deeply am I indebted, Miss Weston's book will elucidate the difficulties of the poem much better than my notes can do; and I recommend it (apart from the great interest of the book itself) to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble. To another work of anthropology I am indebted in general, one which has influenced our generation profoundly; I mean The Golden Bough; I have used especially the two volumes Adonis, Attis, Osiris. Anyone who is acquainted with these works will immediately recognise in the poem certain references to vegetation ceremonies.

  <1> Macmillan] Cambridge.
  I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

  Line 20.  Cf.  Ezekiel 2:1.

  23.  Cf.  Ecclesiastes 12:5.

  31.  V.  Tristan und Isolde, i, verses 5-8.

  42.  Id.  iii, verse 24.

  46.  I am not familiar with the exact constitution of the Tarot pack
  of cards, from which I have obviously departed to suit my own convenience.
  The Hanged Man, a member of the traditional pack, fits my purpose
  in two ways:  because he is associated in my mind with the Hanged God
  of Frazer, and because I associate him with the hooded figure in
  the passage of the disciples to Emmaus in Part V. The Phoenician Sailor
  and the Merchant appear later; also the "crowds of people," and
  Death by Water is executed in Part IV.  The Man with Three Staves
  (an authentic member of the Tarot pack) I associate, quite arbitrarily,
  with the Fisher King himself.

  60.  Cf.  Baudelaire:

       "Fourmillante cite;, cite; pleine de reves,
       Ou le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant."

  63.  Cf.  Inferno, iii.  55-7.

                                     "si lunga tratta
       di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto
       che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta."

  64.  Cf.  Inferno, iv.  25-7:

       "Quivi, secondo che per ascoltare,
       "non avea pianto, ma' che di sospiri,
       "che l'aura eterna facevan tremare."

  68.  A phenomenon which I have often noticed.

  74.  Cf.  the Dirge in Webster's White Devil .

  76.  V. Baudelaire, Preface to Fleurs du Mal.

  II.  A GAME OF CHESS

  77.  Cf.  Antony and Cleopatra, II. ii., l. 190.

  92.  Laquearia.  V.  Aeneid, I. 726:

       dependent lychni laquearibus aureis incensi, et noctem flammis
                      funalia vincunt.

  98.  Sylvan scene.  V. Milton, Paradise Lost, iv.  140.

  99.  V. Ovid, Metamorphoses, vi, Philomela.

  100.  Cf.  Part III, l. 204.

  115.  Cf.  Part III, l. 195.

  118.  Cf.  Webster:  "Is the wind in that door still?"

  126.  Cf.  Part I, l. 37, 48.

  138.  Cf.  the game of chess in Middleton's Women beware Women.

  III.  THE FIRE SERMON

  176.  V. Spenser, Prothalamion.

  192.  Cf.  The Tempest, I.  ii.

  196.  Cf.  Marvell, To His Coy Mistress.

  197.  Cf.  Day, Parliament of Bees:

       "When of the sudden, listening, you shall hear,
       "A noise of horns and hunting, which shall bring
       "Actaeon to Diana in the spring,
       "Where all shall see her naked skin . . ."

  199.  I do not know the origin of the ballad from which these lines
  are taken:  it was reported to me from Sydney, Australia.

  202.  V. Verlaine, Parsifal.

  210.  The currants were quoted at a price "carriage and insurance
  free to London"; and the Bill of Lading etc. were to be handed
  to the buyer upon payment of the sight draft.

  Notes 196 and 197 were transposed in this and the Hogarth Press edition,
  but have been corrected here.

  210.  "Carriage and insurance free"] "cost, insurance and freight"-Editor.

  218.  Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a "character,"
  is yet the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest.
  Just as the one-eyed merchant, seller of currants, melts into
  the Phoenician Sailor, and the latter is not wholly distinct
  from Ferdinand Prince of Naples, so all the women are one woman,
  and the two sexes meet in Tiresias.  What Tiresias sees, in fact,
  is the substance of the poem.  The whole passage from Ovid is
  of great anthropological interest:

       '. . . Cum Iunone iocos et maior vestra profecto est
       Quam, quae contingit maribus,' dixisse, 'voluptas.'
       Illa negat; placuit quae sit sententia docti
       Quaerere Tiresiae: venus huic erat utraque nota.
       Nam duo magnorum viridi coeuntia silva
       Corpora serpentum baculi violaverat ictu
       Deque viro factus, mirabile, femina septem
       Egerat autumnos; octavo rursus eosdem
       Vidit et 'est vestrae si tanta potentia plagae,'
       Dixit 'ut auctoris sortem in contraria mutet,
       Nunc quoque vos feriam!' percussis anguibus isdem
       Forma prior rediit genetivaque venit imago.
       Arbiter hic igitur sumptus de lite iocosa
       Dicta Iovis firmat; gravius Saturnia iusto
       Nec pro materia fertur doluisse suique
       Iudicis aeterna damnavit lumina nocte,
       At pater omnipotens (neque enim licet inrita cuiquam
       Facta dei fecisse deo) pro lumine adempto
       Scire futura dedit poenamque levavit honore.

  221.  This may not appear as exact as Sappho's lines, but I had in mind
  the "longshore" or "dory" fisherman, who returns at nightfall.

  253.  V. Goldsmith, the song in The Vicar of Wakefield.

  257.  V.  The Tempest, as above.

  264.  The interior of St. Magnus Martyr is to my mind one of
  the finest among Wren's interiors.  See The Proposed Demolition
  of Nineteen City Churches (P. S. King & Son, Ltd.).

  266.  The Song of the (three) Thames-daughters begins here.
  From line 292 to 306 inclusive they speak in turn.
  V.  Gutterdsammerung, III.  i:  the Rhine-daughters.

  279.  V. Froude, Elizabeth, Vol.  I, ch.  iv, letter of De Quadra
  to Philip of Spain:

  "In the afternoon we were in a barge, watching the games on the river.
  (The queen) was alone with Lord Robert and myself on the poop,
  when they began to talk nonsense, and went so far that Lord Robert
  at last said, as I was on the spot there was no reason why they
  should not be married if the queen pleased."

  293.  Cf.  Purgatorio, v.  133:

       "Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia;
       Siena mi fe', disfecemi Maremma."

  307.  V. St. Augustine's Confessions:  "to Carthage then I came,
  where a cauldron of unholy loves sang all about mine ears."

  308.  The complete text of the Buddha's Fire Sermon (which corresponds
  in importance to the Sermon on the Mount) from which these words are taken,
  will be found translated in the late Henry Clarke Warren's Buddhism
  in Translation (Harvard Oriental Series). Mr. Warren was one
  of the great pioneers of Buddhist studies in the Occident.

  309.  From St. Augustine's Confessions again.  The collocation
  of these two representatives of eastern and western asceticism,
  as the culmination of this part of the poem, is not an accident.

  V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID

  In the first part of Part V three themes are employed:
  the journey to Emmaus, the approach to the Chapel Perilous
  (see Miss Weston's book) and the present decay of eastern Europe.

  357.  This is Turdus aonalaschkae pallasii, the hermit-thrush
  which I have heard in Quebec County.  Chapman says (Handbook of
  Birds of Eastern North America) "it is most at home in secluded
  woodland and thickety retreats. . . . Its notes are not remarkable
  for variety or volume, but in purity and sweetness of tone and
  exquisite modulation they are unequalled."  Its "water-dripping song"
  is justly celebrated.

  360.  The following lines were stimulated by the account of one
  of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one
  of Shackleton's): it was related that the party of explorers,
  at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion
  that there was one more member than could actually be counted.

  367-77. Cf.  Hermann Hesse, Blick ins Chaos:

  "Schon ist halb Europa, schon ist zumindest der halbe Osten Europas auf dem
  Wege zum Chaos, fährt betrunken im heiligem Wahn am Abgrund entlang
  und singt dazu, singt betrunken und hymnisch wie Dmitri Karamasoff sang.
  Ueber diese Lieder lacht der Bürger beleidigt, der Heilige
  und Seher hört sie mit Tränen."

  402.  "Datta, dayadhvam, damyata" (Give, sympathize,
  control). The fable of the meaning of the Thunder is found
  in the Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad, 5, 1.  A translation is found
  in Deussen's Sechzig Upanishads des Veda, p.  489.

  408.  Cf.  Webster, The White Devil, v.  vi:

                                                      ". . . they'll remarry
     Ere the worm pierce your winding-sheet, ere the spider
     Make a thin curtain for your epitaphs."

  412.  Cf.  Inferno, xxxiii.  46:

            "ed io sentii chiavar l'uscio di sotto
            all'orribile torre."

  Also F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality, p.  346:

  "My external sensations are no less private to myself than are my
  thoughts or my feelings.  In either case my experience falls within
  my own circle, a circle closed on the outside; and, with all its
  elements alike, every sphere is opaque to the others which surround
  it. . . . In brief, regarded as an existence which appears in a soul,
  the whole world for each is peculiar and private to that soul."

  425.  V. Weston, From Ritual to Romance; chapter on the Fisher King.

  428.  V.  Purgatorio, xxvi.  148.

            "'Ara vos prec per aquella valor
             'que vos guida al som de l'escalina,
             'sovegna vos a temps de ma dolor.'
              Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina."

  429.  V.  Pervigilium Veneris.  Cf.  Philomela in Parts II and III.

  430.  V. Gerard de Nerval, Sonnet El Desdichado.

  432.  V. Kyd's Spanish Tragedy.

  434.  Shantih.  Repeated as here, a formal ending to an Upanishad.
  'The Peace which passeth understanding' is a feeble translation
  of the content of this word.











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